Juxtaposition

According to www.wikipedia.org a juxtaposition "is an act or instance of placing two things close together or side by side. This is often done in order to compare/contrast the two, to show similarities or differences."

I chose to shoot photos of urban trees. Most of these trees are surrounded by impervious pavement and restricted of air and water in their root systems. In addition, urban trees are subjected to polluted air, compacted and nutrient-poor soil, road salt, dog urine, and litter in their branches. Trees also have to survive car doors being slammed into their trunks day in and day out. Although some are resilient, most trees are not invincible.

In the Philadelphia urban setting, sometimes the mere presence of trees seems like a juxtaposition in the landscape. It doesn't look like they belong in those tiny holes in the sidewalk, their roots bulging up into a cement ceiling. Even peering down a street, especially now in the winter, when deciduous trees are naked, stretching their boney branches skyward, there is a visible contrast with the linear lines of all the buildings and streets and fences.

Many people don't even recognize that the trees are there. I know that until I took a class in tree identification, I certainly did not see trees as I see them now. After learning that each tree has its own set of characteristics that set it apart from all the others, I began to see different trees everywhere. Upon learning their names and forms, how they thrive and reproduce, a relationship was spawned and a new world opened up to me. Plants often do best when they are planted in their natural plant community. Just like people, plants require a community and a set of cultural conditions to survive.

When the Europeans first came to the new world, the east coast was shrouded in impenetrable climax forests. Now, we intersperse monocultures of trees like soldiers in rows along the street. Even the trees that are planted in urban settings are often not the trees that are native to the region. Many invasive species are taking over any greenspace in an urban setting. The health of a forest is determined by what species are actually reproducing and surviving. If this is the definition of health, the native species in our urban forest aren't doing so hot.

Philadelphia boasts a cornucopia of horticultural history, and within that history are plant explorers who traveled the globe to collect different species for the wealthy who had botanical interests and owned land. Meantime, the plants native to North America were being exploited and extinguished. Many of the collected species of plants were kept in arboreta and estate gardens that are still around today. These are the remnants of a history in which we discounted the native species as abundant and never-ending and continued on an insatiable quest for more.

Today many of the arboreta realize that the plants native to this region are in fact vulnerable (often to the very foreign plants and the diseases those plants carried, which the arboreta are protecting). Some are changing their missions to not only preserve the history of the estate or arboretum, but also to include some type of stewardship for the plants that were displaced by that history. All photos by Bri Crowley 2006, Philadelphia, PA.